VIEWS FROM THE LOCH
Angling,news and comment from around the loch. The news pages of St Mary's Angling Club on St Mary's loch in the Scottish Borders UK.

Sunday, 30 October 2016

The Tweed beckons!

Photo 01 - Stevie Nimmo opens his back end account, well done mate!

The Tweed beckons!

It’s that
time again when our Wild Trout competition winner and a group of members who
have attended workdays head off to Major Westbrook’s beat on the River Tweed
to have a bash at the Salmon.
Unfortunately this year’s winner Alan Ramsay is unable to attend due to
being in Australia for a month’s holiday! Naturally we have arranged a day next
year to make sure he does not lose out.

The Salmon
fishing over the last 3 years has been poor no point in beating about the bush!
Some proprietors have already closed their beats due to poor numbers of fish.
The news from our beat is that this week 3 anglers landed 10 fish lost 3 and
had one silver coloured fish the rest being of the tartan variety. So at least
fish are being caught which is a distinct improvement on recent years!

We have no
date as yet for our outing but we should hear very soon. Consequently no doubt
to Mr Young’s annoyance I will be contacting those who carry out significant
work for the club and inviting them to come along and enjoy what is always a
great day out irrespective of fish caught or Mother Nature's wrath!

Photo 02 - The start of a good day yesterday!

It’s a WILD fishery!

There has
been a long tradition of stocking the loch with Brown Trout going back at least
50 years. Initially eyed ova from were brought in Loch Leven and reared in our
boathouse until they were 2 – 3 inches in length and then released into the
feeder burns of the loch. This apparently led to reasonable stocks of
adolescent Trout but there was a need for more as the trend for stocking adult
fish caught on. Then adult fish of takeable size were stocked and catch figures
significantly increased as to an extent the loch turned into a semi commercial
fishery!

Of course
due to the numbers of Trout stocked and the interval of a year between
stockings in no way compared to the truly “plastic” types so prevalent today
where fish are topped up on a daily basis to replace fish taken. When a
decision taken by Scottish National Heritage effectively stopped the stocking
of Trout into wild waters the rivers and lochs reverted once again to being
self sustaining!

We are now
over ten years down that line and doubtless most anglers could argue both for
or against the current situation. However we are where we are and as such we
have to live with the current situation! The other species in the loch are self
regulating as our Brown Trout now are. With this being the case we have to
tread carefully when it comes to the amount of angling pressure we allow on the
lochs!

The
ludicrous idea put forward by our ex loch keeper Mr Xxxxx would have seen
motorised boats out every day of the week and day permits issued without any
thought towards sustainability! The
above implemented in a wild fishery would have been a death sentence from which
our fishery would take years to get over. Ham fisted policy such as proposed by
Mr Xxxxx would effectively negate our fishing for years thereby plunging the very existence of the club in severe jeopardy!

Key in our
management must be the fact that if overfishing is taking place we reserve the
right to immediately revert the fishery to members only excluding visitors to
ease the pressure on the lochs! We do not have the luxury of ordering a couple
of thousand replacement fish. Heavy handedness such as suggested by Mr Xxxxx would have did for us good and proper! Having seen firsthand the effects of
overfishing we are very reluctant to be in that place again.

Managing the
numbers of anglers fishing is always uppermost in our minds whereas with Mr Xxxxx it was revenue to fill his back pocket. As the administrators of the loch
those are the steps that we could take. It is up to anglers to make sure when
fishing for Pike that a minimum of 15lbs mono or 40lbs braid is used, mechanical
bite indication is essential with electronic beepers as back up if required and the fastest strike
possible be implemented. Brown Trout/Perch anglers are moving towards catch and
release by taking only occasional fish. If our anglers can achieve that and we
monitor numbers then we are doing all we can to keep our fishery sustainable! Unlike Mr Xxxxx we see the loch as a long
term resource rather than a source of free cash!

Engine thoughts!

We are
currently mulling over alternatives with regard to our club engines and a few
ideas have emerged. The most exciting in my view is that of making our engines
(petrol & electric) available virtually free of charge to members who have
attended a club workday. It could conceivably last for a calendar year and all
members would be expected to cover would be bringing their own petrol or
battery and pay a £5.00 charge which would go towards parts/consumables
required for annual servicing.

Another idea
circulating is that members should be able to hire these engines at a paltry
fee of £10.00/24hrs. Again this fee would be put towards servicing of these
engines. There are of course many other options such as continuing with hire on
demand to all or scrapping engine hire altogether. The topic has been tabled for
discussion at our AGM and it is likely we will come to a firm decision!

The wider world in my view!

No one at home!

We got an
indication this week of how our new Prime Minister would view the concerns of
the devolved areas within the UK. It looks as though Mrs May will be trying to
emulate her hero Butcher Thatcher! You would have thought with the UK about to
leave the EU efforts would be made to strengthen the situation at home.

It appears
Mrs May is intent on breaking up the UK continuing the deplorable work of Lord
Snooty! She has passed over the responsibility for dealing with the devolved
governments to the hugely inexperienced David Davies, he of hotline fame! The
Tories have made a conscious decision to treat the devolved administration with
complete and utter contempt!

The question
posed by Scotland regarding staying in the single market has not been addressed
at all. The mutterings of irrelevant puppet David Mundell carry no weight, the
people of Scotland need to hear the answer of Theresa May supposedly the new
(unelected) Prime Minister! She looks to be making a complete hash of the
Brexit strategy in that she has no strategy at all!

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Important information for members

For fishing information please phone 07980350031

If you would like to join the club or renew your membership please click the link below to download the form.https://sites.google.com/site/stmarysloch/club-membership-1The next event for members is membership renewal. You may renew from the 1st of January until the 31st of January 2017. failure to renew within this time frame will result in the £20.00 joining fee being implemented. Joining/Renewal form click the link

Club AGM will take place in February/March 2017 date and venue to be announced.